6 Comments

> About 40% of births in the U.S. now take place outside marriage, up from just 11% in 1970. (A particularly striking trend is the decline in “shotgun” marriages). From a feminist perspective, which to be clear is my perspective, these are marvelous developments.

Welfare state is funded by the taxpayers. These "marvelous developments" are increasing amounts of single men. Who then indirectly pay for childcare of their offspring. Some very small amount of men, the ones most sexually attractive, will be the ones to impregnate these single mothers. They will also pay taxes, but the cost per child is negligible.

I guess feminism is the next crunch, like the one few thousands years ago, when the ratio of women who reproduced to men who reproduced fell to 17:1, on average? https://psmag.com/environment/17-to-1-reproductive-success

As one feminist commented:

> TBF if women have enough power to not need a male provider they may decide to do without.

> Iceland has shown that a good support system for women leads them to not marry men nor wait for a marriage to have children of their own. In 2017, over 2/3s of babies were born to mothers who were not married.

> It seems if you give women the social support they need to have families, they will just have them without waiting for someone to put a ring on it. Some women have children from multiple fathers. And we see none of the hand-wringing we hear about someone getting pregnant and the father is crap and what to do.

> Icelandic women just have the children they want when they want them. I am sure it is easy to sign men up for that when there is little to no requirement to personally support these children. Men could become drones in this scenario.

"Men could become drones". And ofc "I am sure it is easy to sign men up for that when there is little to no requirement to personally support these children" men here refers to these who fuck them. Consent of the ones who don't... doesn't apply.

...that kind of gender inequality is not important, of course, and absolutely can't be questioned. Women independence from men is clearly more important than the happiness of most of the men who will be born in such a society. Seems rather cruel of mothers to not abort male pregnancies.

Unless at some point men would rebel, and then all of feminist gains will be reverted. Probably permanently, because future generations of men will know exactly what happens if they will treat women as equals.

Expand full comment

Richard, Very true. Thanks for the article and your new book. As a father of five, grandfather of seventeen, and great grandfather of two, I take fathering seriously. I grew up without a father in the home and still feel the pain of the loss. When our first son, Jemal, was born on November 21, 1969, I made a vow to be a different kind of father than my father was able to be for me and to do everything I could to create a world where fathers were fully involved with their families and communities throughout their lives. I started MenAlive.com in 1970. I've written seventeen books on men's health, including My Distant Dad: Healing the Family Father Wound. My latest book, coming out in November is Love Live Men! The Moonshot Mission to Heal Men, Close the Lifespan Gap, and Offer Hope to Humanity. I've ordered your book and would enjoy connecting with you and helping promote what I know is an important book. Drop me a note to Jed@MenAlive.com and come visit my website.

Expand full comment

Gilder's quote strikes me as dubious masculine social theory, rather than an established empirical fact. Men integrated into communities through a [patriarchal] family role, etc. get involved in all sorts of bananas stuff, including facism and Trumpism. The list of Jan 6 insurrectionists who have wives and children is quite long.

The Willets' quote (“A welfare system that was originally designed to compensate men for loss of earnings is slowly and messily redesigned to compensate women for the loss of men”) is a bit off too, but it does get our minds moving in the direction of the real root problem: the neo-liberal policy shift which emphasizes "targeting", very narrow cost-benefit considerations, small/cheap ideas and programs, and political triangulation. It's worth noting that this is a problem in which figures/places like Rivlin, Sawhill, and Brookings loom large.

Expand full comment
Oct 1, 2022·edited Oct 1, 2022

Brilliant! ...especially your statement “no, especially if - they do not fulfill the traditional breadwinning role.” When I was a Parole & Probation agent in central Baltimore, my male clients repeatedly made the point that they wanted — and deserved… and needed — to be valued for more than their money. We certainly got over the old idea that women were valuable only for their looks and for their ability to cook and clean, didn’t we? Let’s nudge the culture toward making the complementary change for men.

Expand full comment